On Tuesday, a 12-year-old boy of Punjab's Batala village was mauled to death by a pack of stray dogs when he was returning from school.
Similarly, a nine-year-old girl, the daughter of an agricultural labourer, died after a canine attack in Bahiya village of Haryana's Sirsa district earlier this week when she had gone to a field to collect fodder.
The population of stray dogs is over 23,000 in Sirsa alone, official sources said.
Officials said that sterilisation campaigns have gone slow at some places in the states which has resulted in an increase in canine population.
Authorities have stepped up efforts on these drives in various places to curb further incidents, they said.
According to a senior Haryana Government official, the Deputy Commissioners of Hisar, Fatehabad and Sirsa, have been asked to relocate stray dogs by taking the help of local panchayats. PTI SUN DBR
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